Literacy policy and English/literacy practice: : Researching the interaction between different knowledge fields

This article considers the role of research in disentangling an increasingly complex relationship between literacy policy and practice as it is emerging in different local and national contexts. What are the tools and methodologies that have been used to track this relationship over time? Where should they best focus attention now? In answering these questions this paper will consider three different kinds of research perspectives and starting points for enquiry: 1. Policy evaluation. The use of a range of quantitative research tools to feed policy decision-making by tracking the impact on pupil performance of different kinds of pedagogic or policy change (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2010). 2. Co-construction and policy translation. This has for some time been a central preoccupation in policy sociology, which has used small-scale and context specific research to test the limits to the control over complex social fields that policy exercises from afar (Ball, 1994). Agentic re-framings of policy at the local level stand as evidence for the potential to challenge, mitigate or reorder such impositions. 3. Ethnographies of policy time and space. Ethnographic research tools have long been used to document community literacy practices, and in training their lens on the classroom have sought to focus on the potential dissonance between community and schooled practices. It is rarer to find such research tools deployed to explore the broader policy landscape. In the light of debate within the field, part of the purpose of this article is to examine how ethnographic research tools might be refined to study how policy from afar reshapes literacy practices in the here and now. (Brandt and Clinton, 2002)

Police Misconduct:Mapping its location, seriousness and theoretical underpinning

Police misconduct and the location of street crimes and deviance have received much research attention. The location of police misconduct, by contrast, has not. Taking the case of Ireland, where policing underwent significant reform in 2007, police oversight data are mapped to determine the location and nature of complaints and any clustering of police misconduct, particularly in areas of greatest deprivation usually associated with people coming into most frequent contact with police. The implications of the findings for police, police oversight, and existing theories by which geography of deviance is framed are discussed

Law School as a Consumer Product: Beat \u27em or Join \u27em

With rising costs, pressure on performance metrics, and competitive high-profile rankings, law schools are more than ever before being judged on a consumer satisfaction basis by both students and the public. While this perception has been growing over the past two decades, it has reached a crisis point in legal education.1 Courts have been more readily viewing the policies and practices of educational institutions as that of a customer-provider relationship and seeking ways to enforce solutions to the problems they see regarding the product sold.2 The growing trend of treating education as a consumer product that is sold to students has forced courts to consider contract claims by students and has shaped the policies of educational institutions nationwide.3 The connection between consumerism and higher education scrutiny has been explored for quite some time.4 Some have theorized that law schools are leading the way in being scrutinized from this perspective and that universities as a whole can learn from their experiences.5 When students have their choice of educational institutions, they may act like consumers and choose to spend their money based on metrics that satisfy them as buyers. This consumer mindset does not only impact admissions, but also can affect the retention of students.6 The loss of students who transfer out can take a serious toll on a law school, including potential detriments to bar passage, productive classrooms, the loss of future high performing alumni, and the cost of replacing tuition generation.7 Schools are thus currently pressured to address the consumer issue. Many of the conflicts that arise between students, as consumers, and their institutions are not necessarily based in the substance of rules. Instead, much of the complaints stem from the institutions’ transparency and communication about various aspects of the educational experience, from the classroom to students’ prospects on the job market. As such, institutions should consider the student perspective in formulating how they present their program of education and the various aspects within it. While others have questioned outright whether college students are consumers,8 this article will not debate whether law students treat their institutions with a consumer mindset. It presumes they do and instead seeks to solve the problem for institutions. Part II of this article will summarize how this mindset arose in education—specifically how it arose in legal education—and will examine previous conflicts between students and institutions as a result. Part III will examine different areas of law school operations where traditional academic mindsets and student-consumer mindsets may clash, and offers solutions and strategies as to where and how the consumer pressure should be embraced to make institutional change, and where it should be resisted to ensure the consumer pressure does not result in changes that are not in students’ best long-term interests. Part IV offers some conclusions on the approach

Determinants of salary in nonprofit organizations: A study of executive compensation in symphony orchestras

This thesis presents the development of a demand equation for symphony orchestras and a three equation, simultaneous model examining factors which influence nonprofit executive compensation. Results from the demand equation demonstrate that nonprofit orchestras operate in the inelastic portion of the demand curve. Thus, ticket sales generate negative marginal revenues and attendance is increased at the expense of profit. If total revenue is less than total cost, the orchestra must be subsidized by contributions from private and public sectors. The compensation model indicates that salary is positively correlated with the ability to increase contributions and improve organizational quality. Therefore, administrators seeking to enhance income and marketability would do well to focus their energies on these two critical areas. Additionally, private contributions and quality respond positively to executive pay. Organizations seeking to enhance their reputation by increasing their level of service will bid up the salary of superior managers